In recent years, demand for personal entertainment devices has been growing at an astonishing rate. Many of these personal entertainment devices are portable and they are often used together with earphones/headphones. While listening to audio output from these devices using the earphones/headphones, users tend to increase the volume level to unhealthy levels because of either noisy environments or because of personal preference. Kids and teenagers are especially likely to do this given their lack of knowledge in relation to the possibility of hearing loss.
Medical guidelines have stated that a volume level for human ears becomes unhealthy once ambient sounds are drowned out by sounds emanating from the earphones/headphones. When an individual is subjected to unhealthy volume levels for an extended period of time, sensitive structures of the inner ear may get damaged. When such damage occurs, permanent noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is the sad consequence. NIHL is irreversible, but may be prevented with good listening practices. However, the application of good listening practices is still a personal choice which the individual will have to make. Unfortunately, knowledge of the dangers of hearing loss and guidance from parents/peers may not be adequate to ensure that the individual adopts good listening practices. In this regard, there exists a need to automatically restrict volume levels within healthy levels to aid in the adoption of good listening practices.
It should be noted that many of the personal entertainment devices are portable and have limitations in relation to power capacity. It would be highly desirable if an ability to automatically restrict volume levels did not impose a power cost on a power source in the personal entertainment device.